Q for Ted & Kramster

[Earl49]

I stand corrected, Ted. I know that they felt they were losing market share without a truss rod (people saw that as a deficiency) so the N2 mold included a truss rod. It won't surprise me that if N1 ever comes back it would have a truss rod too.

I was unaware that the shape was independent of the mold changeover and truss rod addition. I will try not to perpetuate that myth any further.

[Ted @ LA Guitar Sales]

Originally Posted by Earl49

I stand corrected, Ted. I know that they felt they were losing market share without a truss rod (people saw that as a deficiency) so the N2 mold included a truss rod. It won't surprise me that if N1 ever comes back it would have a truss rod too.

I was unaware that the shape was independent of the mold changeover and truss rod addition. I will try not to perpetuate that myth any further.

No worries, but as long as we're clarifying, the truss rod had nothing to do with loosing market share. Keep in mind that when the N2 neck was introduced in late 2008, their main competition was Composite Acoustics. CA is still their biggest competition, and their guitars still don't have truss rods. The next biggest builder at the time was Blackbird, and although the new Ekoa models do have truss rods, none of their models did back then.

Since the new necks were going to involve all new tooling, adding a truss rod was a no brainer. I'm guessing any new neck from Rainsong will have a truss rod.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by Earl49

I believe that all of the current manufacturers offer a lifetime warranty to the original owner much like the wood guitar builders do (although Peavey's willingness to stand behind that has come into question here of late). Carbon fiber would be tough to repair, if it ever needed any, but if the manufacturer is willing to replace a guitar with manufacturing defects outright....

My 2001 Rainsong WS-1000 has been flawless for the sixteen years that I've owned it, and ditto for the PMJ-1000 hybrid from around 2006. The other two current CF guitars (2014 Peavey era Cargo and 2016 Blackbird Lucky 13, with an Emerald 12 string pending) have also been without issue or problems of any kind.

The only problems that I recall hearing about were neck angle problems with SOME of the original CA guitars just before they shut their doors in 2010, and some folks would like to have a truss rod in their original "N1" Rainsong necks to adjust relief. The N2 neck has a truss rod, hence the beefier shape.

All good points unless you own the one guitar that is a problem. Warranties are nearly perfect until you find out what your responsibilities might be to collect on them.

None of the epoxies used to make CF guitars are truly hermetic. They all absorb water (hygroscopic) and will react to temperature changes differently depending on their level of water content. The leading defect in semiconductor packaging is delamination. When I look at a RainSong, I can see they've thought that problem through and properly accounted for it.

I have owned and played in a store two brands of composite guitars with high action and no remaining saddle to adjust. I am completely unsure how a linen based composite will hold up in the long run since the fiber itself is hygrosopic as is the epoxy.

If you think these things are bullet proof, that requires some production experience to prove. If they are a fun purchase, then it does not matter how they hold up. With wood guitars almost anything can be repaired by a local luthier, which is not true for composite. When we compare brands of composite guitars, I think some weight could be reasonably assigned to have they made enough of these to know their robustness to the real world (and the extra abuse we would like to let our composite guitars survive -- in my case a hot car trunk).

[Ted @ LA Guitar Sales]

Thanks, Jon!